Crossing Jerusalem and negotiating issues of censorship and self-censorship
By Julia Pascal
More recently I wrote 'Crossing Jerusalem' thanks to a seedbed grant from the European Association of Jewish Culture and this was produced in March 2003 at The Tricycle Theatre in London who commissioned it. The collaborative experience of working with the director, writer, dramaturge and other theatre colleagues at various script meetings, which led up to final draft was both valuable and challenging. |
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Alphabet ,an extraordinary performance and art installation in Poznan
By Lena Stanley-Clamp
An extraordinary performance and art installation in the former synagogue building in Poznan – now a municipal swimming pool – drew a large audience of young people keen to learn about Judaism and the Polish-Jewish heritage, which remained obscured for several decades during the Communist era. |
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Call for Proposals : The European Association for Jewish Culture offers grants to artists for new works in the Performing Arts
The European Association for Jewish Culture, an independent grant-making body, offers grants to artists for new works in the Performing Arts which reflect the Jewish experience.:New work for the stage linked to a performance and Composition of new music linked to a performance and/or recording . |
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European Association for Jewish Culture : Grant Award Recipients 2006
The European Association for Jewish Culture (EAJC) has announced the winners of the annual grants awarded to promote creativity in Jewish culture. The grants, ranging from €3,000 to €10,000, have been awarded this year to projects and artists based in 11 European countries: Austria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Serbia, Spain and the United Kingdom. |
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Artists and playwrights from 12 countries in Europe receive awards
By Winston Pickett
London -The European Association for Jewish Culture announces the winners in its new programme of grants designed to promote Jewish creativity in the visual and performing arts, media and publishing.
The grants range from Euro 3,000 to Euro 10,000 and have been awarded to artists and projects in 12 countries across Europe, following a lengthy review by independent professional experts.
The countries include Belgium, Denmark, France, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, S |
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Potsdamer Platz versus Aschenbach Two paradigms of Jewish life in Europe
By Diana Pinto
As Jewish playwrights, filmmakers and producers you are destined to play a major role in the renewal of Jewish public life, and its representations, across Europe. You occupy the most visible and open of all of Europe's Jewish Spaces, that comprised by the arts. Jewish museums and Holocaust memorials have visitors. Jewish Studies programs in the universities have students. But only the arts have access to a living interactive 'audience' whose imagination can be captivated through a quality time |
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A rich harvest of new theatre in Europe
By Lena Stanley-Clamp
Back stage after the performance, Enrico remarked that in his previous shows he had always had to explain Judaism and his own Jewishness to Italian audiences, but with Yonah he has found the confidence to present a Jewish text, language and music without compromise. ‘Let them make what they will of it.’ Judging by the reaction in Monte San Savino, they met him more than half-way. Crossing Jerusalem was the hardest play I ever wrote’ said Julia Pascal. ‘I did a lot of research and tried to get th |
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The Jerusalem Syndrome: The climax of political theatre in Israel
By Miriam Yahil-Wax
The only certainty is the play, which moves between the outer circle of modern times, and the inner one of antiquity. Then it goes into the innermost one of the Jewish mind where it finds the paradox: To make their particular brand of Judaism win, the historical Zealots lost Judea; To win a war he cannot justify, the Sergeant loses his mind. Perhaps he too is just a character in the Professor's play-within-a-play, and mad to begin with? Perhaps the war is a figment of his imagination? |
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Responsibilities of representation: Does it matter if it's good for the Jews?
By Jonathan Metzger
is this a question that is unique to the Jewish playwright or possibly just a specific variant of a more general problem that is relevant to anyone who works in the creative arts, namely the question: 'How will my work be interpreted?' Can I attempt to control it and is it even morally defendable to attempt to do so? |
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Jewish culture in France today: aspirations of universality and representations of identity
By Pierre-Jerome Adjedj
What does it mean to be a Jewish artist in France today? What is the mission of a Jewish artist? Is there a contemporary theatrical creation that can be identified as typically Jewish, beside the creations commonly known as community creations? Can this creation find its place somewhere? I don't claim to answer all these questions in an exhaustive manner. Moreover, this question refers as always, to a more general question: What does it mean to be Jewish in the society in which we live? |
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The Stage Jew: Between the personal and the stage identity
By Enrico Fink
A few days ago I was In Los Angeles, dining out with some friends, among which was an Israeli lady. I had barely just been introduced to her as an actor, performing Jewish theater in Italy; she shook my hand and she said: "what do you do it for? All Italians are antisemites."
I'm sure that everybody here who, like me, has many long time Israeli friends, knows that it is a widely spread characteristic - to jump to the heart of a problem, without losing time on complimentary frills. And this lady |
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Company of Angels -The Story of Charlotte Salomon on tour in Europe
'Company of Angels' is told using Horse + Bamboo's uniquely vivid and distinctive style - combining masks, puppetry, movement and specially composed music. The design of the piece is drawn directly from the painting style of Charlotte Salomon.
Charlotte Salomon was a German Jewish woman, a painter, born in Berlin in 1917. 26 years later she was put to death in Auschwitz/Birkenau concentration camp. In the last year of her life, while in exile in the South of France, she produced an amazing seri |
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Jewish culture in Sweden: Who are the audiences for Jewish themes?
By Irena Kraus
My first play on a Jewish theme was commisioned by Unga Riks. (A part of Swedish Riksteatern, one of our major theatres touring all over Sweden).This was meant to be a play for children. The artistic director came to me one day with a book by a Jewish psychiatrist , in which she told stories of her cases in therapy. And there I found a few lines about a young boy, Josef, who survived the concentration camp, but wasn´t really able to live afterwards. I wrote the play "The Butterfly Children" |
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Between Cracow, London and Manhattan: Viewing Jewish history through a multicultural lens
By Eva Hoffman
I would like to suggest that just as the Jewish diasporic experience can serve as an interesting template for the understanding of contemporary multicultural societies, so the experience of modern multiculturalism can throw an interesting light on Jewish history -- and possibly modify our sense of Jewish exceptionality. |
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American-Jewish Theatre : Standing on the hyphen
By Richard A. Siegel
One of the major sessions at the recent conference of the Association of Jewish Theaters, held in Washington, DC this past March, was a panel of culturally-specific theater companies in the area. There was an Afro-American theater company, a GLBT (gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender) theater company, an Irish-American theater company, a women's theater company, an Asian-American theater company, and of course an American-Jewish theater company.The all had the same goal: to present the X expe |
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Between Shylock and the pivotal other
By Lena Stanley-Clamp
The European Performing Arts Forum Prague 14-16 June 2003 was a think tank seminar on 'Jewish Spaces in European Theatre' - the spaces being a metaphor for Jewish culture and creativity on contemporary European stages. Prague is full of more tangible Jewish spaces: as we looked down on the ancient Jewish cemetery during the breaks from our debates about the future, we were reminded of our deep roots and multi-layered European past. |
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